Endnote 4 – What Did the Last Supper Really Look Like?

Interestingly, early rabbinic literature contains an injunction that “even the poorest of Jews should not eat the meal on Passover night until he reclines on his left side, as free and wealthy people recline when they eat” (Mishnah Pesachim 10.1). However, this statement is likely not a description of normative practice in the Second Temple period, but is best understood as an effort by third-century sages to convince the lower classes to recline at Passover, precisely because that is not what they typically did.